Related papers: The End of Cheap Uranium
During 2009 nuclear power plants, with a capacity of 370 GWe, will produce roughly 14% of the worldwide electric energy. About 65000 tons of natural uranium equivalent are required to operate these reactors. For 15 years on average only 2/3…
An update of our 2009 study, "The Future of Nuclear Energy, Facts and Fiction" using the 2009 and the available 2010 data, including a critical look at the just published 2009 edition of the Red Book, is presented. Since January 2009, eight…
For more than 40 years, the Nuclear Energy Agency of the OECD countries and the International Atomic Energy Administration of the United Nations have published a biannual document with the title "Uranium Resources, Production and Demand".…
In this work we show that as little as 40 kg of 60%-enriched uranium can be used to build a crude nuclear weapon with a kiloton yield. While too large to fit on a missile, such a weapon could be delivered by shipping container. This…
In part I of this analysis, the striking similarities of the declining oil production in the North Sea, Indonesia and Mexico were used to model the future maximum possible oil production per annum in all larger countries and regions of the…
The growing conflicts in and about oil exporting regions and speculations about volatile oil prices during the last decade have renewed the public interest in predictions for the near future oil production and consumption. Unfortunately,…
Fusion energy is often regarded as a long-term solution to the world's energy needs. However, even after solving the critical research challenges, engineering and materials science will still impose significant constraints on the…
Many governments are considering constructing new nuclear power plants to support the decarbonization of the energy system. On the one hand, dispatchable nuclear plants can complement fluctuating generation from wind and PV. On the other…
The supercritical, reactor core melting and nuclear fuel leaking accidents have troubled fission reactors for decades, and greatly limit their extensive applications. Now these troubles are still open. Here we first show a possible perfect…
The global requirements for energy are increasing rapidly as the global population increases and the under-developed nations become more advanced. The traditional fuels used in their traditional ways will become increasingly unable to meet…
It is seldom acknowledged the tremendous burden that the Nuclear Age leaves on future generations, and the environment, for an extremely long time. Nuclear processes, and products, are activated at energies millions of times higher than the…
It was recently argued by Kemp et al. that HALEU (high-assay low-enriched uranium, or uranium enriched up to 19.75\%) can conceivably be used to produce a nuclear weapon and on this basis civilian enrichment limits should be lowered to 10%…
Australia has one of the highest per capita consumption of energy and emissions of greenhouse gases in the world. It is also the global leader in rapid per capita annual deployment of new solar and wind energy, which is causing the…
We study Uranium isotopes and surrounding elements at very large neutron number excess. Relativistic mean field and Skyrme-type approaches with different parametrizations are used in the study. Most models show clear indications for…
The alpha-radiometric determination of uranium after its pre-concentration from natural water samples using the cation-exchange resin Chelex-100, its selective extraction by tributylphosphate and electrodeposition on stainless steel discs…
Geo-neutrino detection can determine the amount of long-lived radioactive elements within our planet, thus providing a direct test of the Bulk Silicate Earth (BSE) model and fixing the radiogenic contribution to the terrestrial heat. We…
Planning the appropriate renewable energy installation rate should balance two partially contradictory objectives: substituting fossil fuels fast enough to stave-off the worst consequences of climate change while maintaining a sufficient…
A significant fraction (5-15%) of renewable energy generated goes into waste in the grids around the world today due to oversupply issues and transmission constraints. Being able to predict when and where renewable curtailment occurs would…
The carbon footprint of Bitcoin has drawn wide attention, but Bitcoin's long-term impact on the climate remains uncertain. Here we present a framework to overcome uncertainties in previous estimates and project Bitcoin's electricity…
The mining of bitcoin is modeled using system dynamics, showing that the past evolution of the network hash rate can be explained to a large extent by an efficient market hypothesis applied to the mining of blocks. The possibility of a…